Share Your Story (no login)

7 Comments in this post »

I struggled in elementary school in the late 50’s and early 60’s. My parents and teachers did not discover that I was severely near sighted until third grade. I was passed on in first and second grade on probation because I could not read and my parents would not retain me.

Reading was valued in my family so I struggled to teach myself to read. I remember thinking that horse and house looked the same. I had to write the words above each other to see the difference. I spent hours teaching myself to read.

My grandparents farm was my haven. I lived for weekend visits and long summer stays. Wandering the hills and woods and floating across the pond in a row boat called the African Queen sparked my curiosity and creativity in problem solving. Life and death decisions made problem solving real. I had to figure out how to get a lamb untangled from the fence. If a fence was down and the sheep were out, I had to fix it without help.

The adults were busy so I had to find the answers to my questions. Books provided the answers. The more I read, the more I learned and the better reader I became. I became the top reader by sixth grade. I learned to be a self educator and learned far more on my own than in any school experience.

I share these experiences with my second graders. I build a culture of scholarship. I help children generate questions and to answer their questions. I try to pass on the importance of self education. Reading is the secret and it gave understanding to my explorations.

Children need more experiences in nature and schools could provide those experiences.

Learning experience can come from the most unexpected of places. My favorite learning moment came from a group of students that I taught fifth grade to at the North Yarmouth Memorial School. That’s not saying that I didn’t have amazing teachers along the way. Yes, of course I did. But, this group of kids humbled me in every way possible.

It all started with a simple service learning project. I wanted to do something different so, I found a partner within the University of New England system to work with me and we hatched a plan to have Alzheimer’s patients come directly to us in the classroom for a project that we called Inter-Generational Friends. We wanted to show that kids and elders were alike and had similar interests. We wanted to change the preconceived notions that kids might have about elders with Alzheimer’s disease.

As a teacher, I knew that anything could happen during this project. So
we prepared like mad before the elders came into the classroom. We taught the kids about the disease, its symptoms, what they what might happen when the elders were visiting. But, you see, we couldn’t have anticipated what happened next.

It didn’t take long for magic to happen. It was immediate. One women was sure that she was sitting with her son- and surprise- that eleven year old boy played along. He let her hold his hand and stroke his hair. It was beautiful, simply beautiful to see the glow in that woman’s eyes as she relived a moment in her life. On the other side of the room, a group of girls inspired a former artist to paint for the first time in five years! What a moment to see her construct a scene across the paper as the kids pretended it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. When an elder gentlemen thought the guidance counselor was a “looker” the kids just simply said that she was married. Imagine that? They didn’t giggle. They didn’t tease. Just simply said she was taken. For that matter, they didn’t even laugh out loud when he yelled, “If you can’t pee… see me!” Yes, he was an urologist. And when he wanted a martini they simply said, “The bar is closed.”

Those kids were geniuses, posed under fire, calm during adversity. They were wise beyond their years when dealing with the elders.

As the project continued I had the students “steal” the elders memories and turn them into poetry. The kids sat and drew and asked the elders questions about their life, while a notetaker scribbled all the facts down. Then the kids constructed beautiful poetry out of those memories. Every time we read the elders back their memories in poetry form, they’d cry and say, “But how did you know?” The kids would beam and let the elders hug them in front of everyone.

We ended this project by having a pizza party at the Bayview Nursing Home. As we wandered the halls of the Alzheimer’s wing, looking at the pictures of the elders in their youth, learning about their lives, it became very clear to the students who these people once were and the reality of their end of life experience.
We ate pizza side by side and sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame together. Then it happened, old jazz music came over the loudspeaker and in a moment of pure spontaneity an elder started to dance with a gusto that made you very clear she’d known a few dance halls in her day. Two of my boys, popped out of their seats, and joined her dancing on the stage. Then more and more students and elders got out of their seats, doing a crazy form of the Jitterbug that somehow morphed into a congo line through the halls of the nursing care facility. Young and old and middle aged and teens all dancing through the halls together.

At that moment, those students taught me all I needed to know about the beauty of living within the moment and aging gracefully. To this day, I am humbled that I knew those kids. If I can keep the essence of their spirit alive in me I’ll be forever grateful. I hope that my own children will grow to be so wise and loving in spirit. Even now, ten years later, that moment makes me so proud that I was their teacher.

**This project was awarded the 2001 Living Legacy Award. The students that participated in this project have graduated from high school, where many of participated in service learning opportunities.

Julie True Kingsley is former elementary/middle school teacher who currently teaches at SMCC. She lives in South Portland with my husband and two children and two very naughty dogs. She blogs daily at http://www.julietruekingsley.com.

My colleagues and I were always looking for ways to make social issues relevant to our children, and at one point we did our own version of the World Hunger Banquet. In this interactive experience, the participants are divided into the same percentages of people who are identified as First World, Second World and Third World. Then a meal is served where a large percentage only get rice, a small group gets a simple meal, and a very tiny percentage is served an elaborate dinner and dessert. The first time we did this with our 5th and 6th grade students it engendered so much good conversation that we decided to do it again after skipping a year, so that it would be a new group of students.

What we didn’t count on was that the project had been talked about so much after the first experience, that these new students were more aware of what was going to happen, and they had made their own plans.

The early parts of the project went off much as they had the first time we did it, and we eventually randomly divided the students into the three groups, all sitting in the same room, but the large group of “third world” students sitting on the floor in one corner, while the 2 “first world” students had a long table all to themselves. The three different meals were served, but when the rice had all been doled out to the third world children, they rose as one body and walked over to the children at the long table, and said: “Can we have some of your food?” Without a blink, the first world duo agreed, and started sharing all their wealth.

My first reaction, and that of the other adults was along the lines of “hey, that’s not how it happens!” but we quickly realized that here was an even better learning experience than what we had planned. We let go of our control, and applauded the desire for a just society that our students were demonstrating. I will never forget how pleased they were with themselves as they proved there was more than enough food to go around.

Amy Valens is a retired elementary school teacher. She taught for most of her career in the Lagunitas School District in California. The film she and her husband made the last year she taught is called AUGUST TO JUNE Bringing Life To School!

My greatest moments of learning have always been from animals. I love the quietude and lack of verbal communication (ironic since I’ve taught English for 8 years!). I recall the partnership created between me and my favorite horse, Mistika, and the nuances of that relationship–it was as if somehow we were two pieces of the same organism, working in tandem. Also at the forefront is the volunteer work I did as an 8th grader (for my Girl Scouts Silver Award) at the University of Florida Vet school…I used to sit with hurt horses (sometimes foals!) for 4 hours at a time just to monitor their health; this meditative time had a profound impact on me–being there with no job other than literally just to be there. It heightened my awareness of others’ pain and suffering as well as my reaction to such things.

But the way in which that most impacts me is as an educator–what I say to students is of very little importance compared to what the students experience. I get to be a co-creator of lives–but not an author, and compassionate, empathetic actions speak louder than words ever could. And of course, I get to set up awesome learning opportunities at the new (just starting this year!) school MC2 (www.mc2school.org), for which I am extremely excited!

It was a warm day in late August. School had already begun but it was the weekend. Few clouds scattered the sky like freckles and the sun was beating down on us as we stomped through the nature park. It was one of the few double-dates I have gone on and it was going well, the two boys are best friends so conversation never was empty. We trekked through the trees and flowers, laughing at the nude statues we saw along the way. After about an hour we came to what I’d call a children’s area. There was a miniature one-room schoolhouse and a miniature train track with a train whizzing around it. As we all goofed off, I noticed a stationary train caboose. It was maybe seven or eight feet tall and I knew at once it was there for me to explore. Or not. Keep in mind that I am a small four feet and ten (and three-quarters) inches tall.. I raced up to the train and immediately checked the door to find both of them locked. At the back of the caboose (a bit redundant huh?) and leaned back against the railing. To my right was a ladder that had the first four or so rungs blocked off by fencing in-between the bars. As a teenager that was a challenge to my stubbornness and rebelliousness. I swung myself around the railing so I was sitting backwards and stood up; grabbing the side of the ladder. I inched my way over to the right side of the train and stepped on a ledge that was luckily enough high enough for me to use as a step. I scaled the side of the train before settling myself on the top of the train, looking out to see my boyfriend and his friend goofing off as well over by a huge pile of rocks. I called them over and the other girl started taking pictures as she had the whole time we were there. After a worker came, not noticing me, and told us the park was closing up, they beckoned for me to come down. I threw my purse to my boyfriend to hold as I climbed down and started my way down the ladder. As I reached the rungs that were blocked up I decided I could land on the thin railing that was a good two feet below my feet. As I attempted this, I lost my balance and started falling. On instinct I reached out and grabbed the railing before I landed on both feet. I had hit my ribs, hip and my right wrist on the way down. After assuring them I was fine, we started the long walk back to our designated vehicles. Periodically I glanced down at my right forearm to see that a bruise had started forming midway almost immediately. Bruises were also, but not surprisingly, forming on my ribs and leg. I took away from this a smattering of large bruises, a sprained wrist and pride. I sit here three months later writing this still in a brace because, if you haven’t been able to tell yet, I am very stubborn. I learn by doing, I don’t like listening when people tell me something I’m doing is dangerous. I like danger, I like learning on my own. I always have, I also learned that going to the doctor after getting hurt is a must. I’m still learning, but at least I do it with some style.

Why I’m glad I failed Math
How many people have failed a course in school in their lives? I would imagine quite a few, but there could not be nearly as many where I came from. I go to the Blue Valley school district in Kansas. If you’re unfamiliar with it, just imagine classical suburbia with sheltered children and helicopter parents.
There you go.
I know that our district’s motto is Ad Astra Per Aspera, a phrase that comes from a language that no one has spoken for a thousand years. However, I believe it should be this; “Our children might not be ready for the world, but just look at our test scores!”
The thing about Blue Valley is that every school does its damnedest to make sure every student passes. Didn’t do any work in your online course? They’ll void the class so it doesn’t hurt your GPA. Have a failing grade with two weeks to go? How about some extra credit?
Ours is a district that strives for good performance on the MAP, ACT, PSAT, SAT, KAS, and of course the all-important GPA. Truly, they have revolutionized the alphabet.
Back to my original point: Failure. Failure is something that everyone experiences in life. In Blue Valley, we like to save that for after school. 95% of us have never failed a course, probably because it’s just too much work.
I, however, am part of the 5%. I failed a math course in sophomore year; I even took summer classes for it. Imagine that. I can’t tell you how upset my parents were. By comparison, I must have seemed jolly. Of course, I wasn’t jolly, I was actually rather un-jolly. All my life, everyone had called me “The smart kid”, and so I became that.
How did I know I was smart? Because my teachers said so. They gave me lots of A’s and B’s. Yes indeed, only the best for my alphabet soup. But when I got that F, the whole soup was tainted, and I could no longer consider myself intelligent. After all, if my grades said I was stupid, they must be right. Even though they had been wrong about my being intelligent in the first place. Right?
Anyway, without “smartness” to hold on to, I had to find something else. Everyone needs something. Something they can hold on to, something that ultimately defines them, something no one can take away even in their darkest hour.
And so I listened to some George Carlin. And I became funny. I became funny not because others said I was funny, but because I thought I was. Humor was now something inherent in me, and I had been the one to decide that.
And I would never have decided that had I not failed math. As I said, it is a lot of work to fail in Blue Valley, but it’s absolutely worth the effort.

In the middle of freshman year, with hardly two months of notice, I picked up and moved to a new state with my mom; living in an apartment while the rest of my family packed up the house back home. I ended up leaving half a year before my younger sisters and my father, because they told me if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to play volleyball that year. Well, I wasn’t about to let that happen, so when my mom started her new job, I went with her, switching schools in the middle of the year. As if that wasn’t enough of a struggle, I had to switch volleyball teams. I had been promised a spot on a fairly good team in the area as their setter, and was eager to get my hands on a volleyball again. However, when I got to the team, I was surprised to find they had another player fill my role while I wasn’t there and she had taken my position. While this was unexpected, I figured she would go back to her position once the team got to know me. As the season progressed this proved to be far from true; I spent all of our matches cheering from the bench, feeling completely worthless and a little pathetic. The coach made a million excuses, primary amongst them, the idea that she couldn’t change things now, it was too late in the season. Of course, I didn’t believe that for a second; I was sure it was because I simply wasn’t good enough for her. I was not happy with that at all but no matter how I improved, I was still lucky to get played once every ten matches, if that.
The most tempting thing to do at this point was to just quit. Give up and go home, forget about it. But somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to give up on the sport I had invested so much of my life in. Instead, I ended up keeping stats on the bench, cheering when we won, encouraging when it was close and comforting when we lost. None of the girls seemed to like me much, but I still couldn’t make myself abandon my team.
Despite how painful it was to be benched, constantly feeling as though I didn’t meet the standards, that team made me stronger. I learned a lot about myself that year, and gained a new sense of what I wanted people to think of me. I decided people didn’t have to like me much, but it if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be because of something I did. Being nice and positive through everything got me so much more than any of that could have. I was proud of myself for never saying a negative word to any of the girls on the team, or my coach, despite always feeling the urge to make them see sense. That semester was one of the hardest of my life, and sometimes I’m still not sure how I made it through. But I’m proud of myself for surviving it and I learned to always keep a positive face, even if you just feel like breaking down. So much more will come from always being seen having a cheerful attitude, even if it’s a false one, and staying strong brings a sense of self that can’t be found any other way.